cast her fortunes, she then went into the train-shed and found a
place, at length, in the next carriage to the one which they had
entered. Then she trained a wary eye out of the window, to make sure
they did not change their minds and slip out and away without her
knowledge before the train departed.

On the arrival in Southampton she waited in the railway carriage till
she saw them started down the platform; then, again, she trailed them.
Two minutes after the Herr Kreutzer had purchased steerage tickets on
the _Rochester_ for far America, M'riar had bought one for herself.
When the German and his daughter reached the shore-end of the
slightly-angled gang-plank leading to the steamer's steerage-deck
(close it was beside the steeper one which led up to the higher and
more costly portions of the ship) she was not far behind them,
trailing, watchful, terrified by the ship's mighty warning whistle
which reverberated in the dock-shed till her teeth were set a-chatter
in an agony of fear of the mere noise.

At this point she nearly lost her self-control and let her quarries
see her, for Herr Kreutzer, in his hurry and excitement, dropped one
of his small hand-bags. Almost she sprang to pick it up for him,
through mere working of her strong instinct to serve him. Indeed, she
would have done so had it not been for a tall and handsome youth.

This young man's eyes, M'riar had been noting, had been closely fixed
upon the lovely face of Anna, doubly lovely, flushed as it now was by
the excitement of the start of a great journey. He sprang forward,
picked up the handbag and presented it to the old German with a frank
good-fellowship of courtesy which took not the least account of the
mere fact that he, himself, was on the point of stepping to the